University Challenge (also featuring Only Connect and other BBC quiz shows)

My kids were "Ooh, look there's Reading Gaol"

OK, so we live in Reading. Still..

And they didn't know who Oscar Wilde was? Not-like-in-my-day why-oh-why hell-in-a-handcart etc

Well, either that, or they didn't feel like saying "That's Oscar Wilde and (a randomly-guessed prison)"

Is it Norman Stanley Fletcher?

Johnny Cash, San Quentin.

they were probably trying to remember which prison stephen fry went to.

Whichever team got the next question right did get most of the similar supplementaries, I think, apart from Rudolph Hess (and the Tower of London).

xpost: HMP Ashfield, according to Wikipedia.

the wilde and lolita qs were last week. i think they were given wilde's name, just had to guess the gaol.

An open gaol really, sorry, an open goal

"who would have thought that a programme called UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE would favour certain eduicational backgrounds, the elitist fucks."

I don't mean universities. I mean schools which teach Latin. I don't think the questions should be easier but I did think too many this series favoured a certain area of knowledge. But I guess part of University Challenge's job is to reassure viewers that there are still young people out there who spent their teens revising their Latin declensions rather than hosting Facebook parties.

And yeah, I watched the last three episodes back to back on Sky + so forgot that the Lolita question was in the semis. It asked which book Clare Quilty appeared in and nobody got it.

i reckon it evens out. i got the lolita q, never get any science or classics qs. obviously a 'classical education' is mostly the preserve of the privately educated. one of the most knowledgable classicists i've known was a comp-educated autodidact -- doesn't prove anything, of course, but just sayin. the show is inherently 'elitist' and would be pointless otherwise.

I don't think there is much Latin, in general, on this programme.

Really? OK then. It just seemed that way to me. I suspect Meme is right that it evens out. Perhaps I just took an unusual dislike to Trimble's mannerisms and therefore noticed the Classics questions more than I otherwise would have. That's the problem with trying to square objective analysis with visceral dislike.

i found her steez hilarious, seemingly deliberately overdoing middle-class swot mannerisms, the whole hairflick thing. so grating but i kind of feel, 'own it'.

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00492/Gail-Trimble_492179a.jpg http://barney.gonzaga.edu/~tlarson1/mkg2.jpg

I was taught Latin (for a year, but some people did take it to O grade level and beyond) in my high school, which was generally acknowledged to be one the three worst schools in Fife.

I did latin at school- grammar school though so probably usual in the 1970s? It was all about some family living in Pompeii and going to the taverna. It didn't end well.

you were either in horto with Caecilius, or you weren't cool

I did my year of latin in 87/88, left school in 92.

treefell: My university gf, who went to Dunfermline High School and left in '96, did Latin at school too.

I did latin at school- grammar school though so probably usual in the 1970s? It was all about some family living in Pompeii and going to the taverna. It didn't end well.

― Ned Trifle II, Tuesday, February 24, 2009 3:08 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol, they were still doing these books in the 90s. i was in the last year in my private school that did mandatory latin, in '96. got a c at gcse.

still doing them in the 00's

and I did Latin right the way through until university finals, go me

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1154145/MELANIE-PHILLIPS-What-mob-really-hates-Gail-Trimble-glowing-self-confidence.html

never did latin until a mandatory half-unit in first year english degree, state school innit

I've never studied Latin in my life, now never will. I've always liked UC though. There is very little Latin on it. Like Meme thingy I find the science just as hard as the Latin, harder in fact.

Melanie Phillips appears to be insane

No "appears" about it.

Do you think an example of "baying brutishness" might be calling Jade Goody a "stupid gobby chav"?

Jesus, that Melanie Phillips piece. A classic example of vaguely citing blogs as an indicator of public opinion. After the Observer piece on Sunday I quickly googled for evidence of this "hate mob" and found just a couple of posts, both of which ended up playing pivotal roles in the Observer and Mail pieces. I hate that lazy habit of citing a handful of blogs - or sometimes just comments on blogs - as if they were the tip of an iceberg when in fact they're the whole, rather tiny iceberg.

I notice the Mail have rather unkindly included a poll - would you rather be clever or beautiful? - next to a picture of Trimble. That will make her feel good about herself.

Truly never heard any hype about this Trimble chick, pro or anti, until today. Maybe the hype and bile is mostly imaginary.

oddly I think my limited (and really pretty good) range of blog experience has left me much more favourable to idea of blogs than most people are.

I notice the Mail have rather unkindly included a poll - would you rather be clever or beautiful? - next to a picture of Trimble. That will make her feel good about herself.

The Mail demonstrated clearly where they stood by having the poll read "Would you rather be clever or beautiful? Yes or No" when I looked at it earlier.

Mail frowns on encouraging hatred and lynchmob mentality, everyone knows that

Thing is, to have an opinion on Trimble you have to watch University Challenge, which suggests you're not averse to middle-class swots per se - in fact you may well be a middle-class swot. But there's no joy in picking apart the lunatic logic of Melanie Phillips.

xpost. I like blogs just fine, but they're a flimsy basis for an article unless you're talking about one of the big, influential ones.

at least no other papers vaguely cited the effect of "bloggers" on trimble's state of mind, or indeed suggested that they might have caused her to start the show badly. even though it was all recorded months before anyone knew her name.

oh, wait. http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/feb/24/gail-trimble-final-university-challenge

sam wollaston is a right joey.

he's worse than that

he's a hideous scumbag and maybe the worst writer ever employed by the Guardian

Can't comment on the former but the latter is certainly true

Ahem, a different point here.

Nice for the other contestants on her team to know that even though they won, it had nothing to do with them and everything to do with the girl in the papers now.

Truly never heard any hype about this Trimble chick, pro or anti, until today. Maybe the hype and bile is mostly imaginary.

i tend to think this as well, though on the other hand there are people calling her smug in this very thread

Well, they certainly have wouldn't won if she hadn't been in their team, so they should count themselves lucky (xp)

(anag)

he's a hideous scumbag and maybe the worst writer ever employed by the Guardian

That's a big maybe, considering how many people have had stuff printed in the Guardian. It can't be long before someone worse than Wollaston comes to mind.

on the other hand there are people calling her smug in this very thread

I hadn't heard that there was any sort of hype about her until it appeared on the 6 o'clock news last night. I said she has a cloud of smugness around her because I've watched her on University Challenge five times and seen the expression on her face through all of it - apart from the first two-thirds (or so) of the final, when they weren't winning.

I've just worked out who she reminds me of - Tracy Flick from Election. She acted as if it were her birthright to win and looked petulant when she got question wrong. It's no fun watching someone so convinced of victory that the process is almost a technicality.

i love tracy flick!!!

& i disagree, watching someone act like the process and their competitors are beneath them is tremendous fun, esp if they win anyway - not that i think trimble is like this particularly, she just seems normal to me.

I have 'been there' myself (admittedly not on UC), you buzz fast, and when it's "I should know this", "I DO!", it's heaven. Mind you I have also done the "I should know this" "OH NO I DOESN'T" helltime.

or, you know, go on telly addicts

funny that there seems to be now show like this now whereas UC survives in these dumbed down times (along with dumbed-down Mastermind)